UB By the Numbers

Category: WebExtras

23: Tom Hollowak’s Favorite Archives

After nearly 23 years at UB, University archivist Tom Hollowak knows well the types of treasures stored in Langsdale Library’s Special Collections. He rounds out his five favorite items in the archives with:

the Baltimore Neighborhood Heritage Project Collection, a selection of oral histories that “is an early example of ‘history from the bottom up,’” Hollowak says; it documents everyday Baltimoreans and at one time, it was the archives’ most heavily used collection

the Citizens Planning and Housing Collection, which typifies the core of the University’s holdings documenting post-World War II Baltimore

Lineage Collections—including those of the General Society of Colonial Wars; the Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Maryland; the Maryland Sons of the American Revolution, Founders and Patriots; the Society of the War of 1812 in Maryland; and American Clan Gregor—donated through former UB President H. Mebane Turner, who also negotiated the organizations’ contribution to an endowment that allows the University to purchase archival supplies

the Young Men’s Christian Association Collection, used by former faculty member and associate provost Jessica Elfenbein to write her dissertation on the YMCA in 1996. Hollowak later collaborated with Elfenbein, who also served as the first scholar in residence at the archives, on three University-sponsored public history conferences that resulted in two publications.

Baltimore Neighborhood Heritage Project Collection

From 1978-81, oral histories were collected from longtime residents of seven Baltimore neighborhoods (Highlandtown, Hampden, Park Heights, Little Italy, South Baltimore, Old West Baltimore and East Baltimore) and from workers in and around the Port of Baltimore for the Baltimore Neighborhood Heritage Project Collection; this photograph of a 1930s African-American civil rights march captures signage reading “Don’t buy where you can’t work,” a message directed at the major department stores in Baltimore; all photography: Audra Harvey

Baltimore Neighborhood Heritage Project Collection

Baltimore Neighborhood Heritage Project Collection: a program from a traveling exhibit of photographs documenting the topics touched upon in the oral histories

Baltimore Neighborhood Heritage Project Collection

Baltimore Neighborhood Heritage Project Collection: Oral histories were recorded on cassette tapes between 1978 and 1981; many were transcribed (and the transcriptions are available online), and all of the tapes have been digitized for future preservation.

Citizens Planning and Housing Collection

The Citizens Planning and Housing Collection was the first to be donated to the University of Baltimore in 1970, but additional records deposits were made through 2009. The Citizens Planning and Housing Association itself was formed more than 60 years ago to address life in Baltimore’s slums and to improve housing throughout the city.

Citizens Planning and Housing Collection

Citizens Planning and Housing Collection: In the 1980s, the association published Bawlamer as an informal guide to promote a “livelier” city.

Citizens Planning and Housing Collection

Citizens Planning and Housing Collection: The Citizens Planning and Housing Association continues to promote citizen action through training programs on a wide range of issues, including community organization and citizen involvement, to improve quality of life in Baltimore.

Lineage Collections

The Lineage Collections contains the membership and organizational records of various societies. Here, the General Society of Colonial Wars’ flag incorporates the shields of the original nine colonies.

Lineage Collections

Lineage Collections: an album cover of colonial music played on authentic instruments, published by the Society of Colonial Wars in the District of Columbia

Lineage Collections

Lineage Collections: an embosser for the seal of the General Society of Colonial Wars

Lineage Collections

Lineage Collections: a minute book from the Society of Colonial Wars in Maryland

Young Men’s Christian Association Collection

The Young Men’s Christian Association Collection: the cover of the association’s minute book

Young Men’s Christian Association Collection

The Young Men’s Christian Association Collection: pages from the association’s minute book

Young Men’s Christian Association Collection

The Young Men’s Christian Association Collection: a photograph of an early-1900s YMCA baseball team

Young Men’s Christian Association Collection

The Young Men’s Christian Association Collection: a photograph of an early-1900s YMCA wrestling team

Young Men’s Christian Association Collection

Former faculty member and associate provost Jessica Elfenbein’s 1996 dissertation on the YMCA

Archives of Maryland Polonia Collection

The Archives of Maryland Polonia Collection preserves, documents and makes available to researchers the history of Polish immigrants and people of Polish heritage in Maryland; it includes a model of the Holy Rosary School, now the Polish National Alliance building on Eastern Avenue.

Archives of Maryland Polonia Collection

The Archives of Maryland Polonia Collection: a reproduction from 1926 of the first Polish language newspaper in Baltimore, Polonia

Archives of Maryland Polonia Collection

A commemorative item from Pope John Paul II’s visit to Baltimore in 1995

25: Uncover the Veil

When the going got tough, students in a fall 2012 learning community got writing.

“After a few weeks into the syllabus, I realized that the lecture approach was not working as effectively as I wanted in this learning community context,” says Gregg Wilhelm, adjunct faculty and founder and executive director of CityLit Project, a program in residence in UB’s School of Communications Design. In fall 2012, he taught the ENGL 200: The Experience of Literature component of a learning community, a thematically linked set of courses offered to UB freshmen. The course was titled “iPad, eBook, uThink: How Technology Has Changed Writing, Publishing and Reading.”

So instead of lecturing, Wilhelm encouraged the students in his class to write—and, even more challenging, to write together in teams. “I fell back on ideas I have implemented in the past with teens, experimented with a team-writing component (which is a hard assignment), and we worked on this book together,” Wilhelm says.

The book, Uncover the Veil, is now a published anthology of stories conceived, developed and written by five groups of five students. The stories are based on an original prompt, and each student contributed to the five parts of a traditionally structured story: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution. Students examined how technology has changed the way that literature is delivered, but the fundamental premise of literature has remained the same: It’s “an effort to transfer content from a writer (the ‘I’) to a reader (the ‘U’),” according to the book’s introduction.

Despite many freshmen being digital natives, meaning they’ve never known a world without digital technologies, the students produced a very analog, beautifully printed book. “The students immediately became engaged, creative, critical, even argumentative at times over character development and plot points,” Wilhelm says. “It was amazing to observe.” Read the anthology now.